


Dragons Have Their Endings

by c3mf



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Don't Ask, Fantasy, Fluff, Gen, blink and you'll miss them, douglas's daughter - Freeform, dragon!AU, it's fun though, mjn crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c3mf/pseuds/c3mf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their endings.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit</p><p>Written for the Cabin Pressure fic meme <a href="http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/6625.html?thread=11942113#cmt11942113">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragons Have Their Endings

Most days Douglas doesn’t feel as though he’s trapped.

He’s been too long confined to this body, grown accustomed to the tightness of his skin, the overwhelming sensation of being crammed into a space too small to fit properly. It’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable. In fact, he supposes, it could be far worse.

He turns his head to crack his jaw and ease the familiar, but growing ache. His muscles pull taut so his bones strain against his skin, threatening to split it apart, but they never do. It gives him some relief, but what he misses is the flex from his shoulder blades. There is no more languorous stretching no matter which way he bends, because now he’s missing the one thing that had always begged to be turned loose.

 _Like an amputee missing a limb,_ he thinks. _I even have the scars to prove it._

He twists his neck until it pops and the release of tension echoes down his spine. It’s the closest thing to relief he’s ever been able to find outside of the cockpit. If the human body weren’t so appallingly fragile, he could take up cliff-diving or hang gliding or something equally adrenaline-inducing and ridiculous. But he has never been about thrill-seeking. No, the escape is what he loves (and, once upon a time, all he lived for).

The memory of flight is what keeps him going now, but even so... 

He would suffer every sort of pain if it meant having that blessed freedom again.

~*~

The one thing they let him keep was the fire. 

Only when he is alone and the darkness hems him in, does he permit himself to it. He licks his fingertips, closes his eyes, and breathes. The sudden crackle of heat is miraculously comforting.

He lets the flames dance across his skin, passes them from hand to hand until he warms himself to the marrow. Then with his blood still hot he snuffs out the fire in his palms and drifts to sleep.

When he dreams, there is smoke on his tongue.

~*~

He knows he isn’t the only one left. 

It doesn’t happen often, but he’ll catch a glimpse in the crowd, just enough to make him stop and turn. Maybe it’s good fortune or karma, the wheel of his ill-begotten deeds cleansed and come full circle. Perhaps it’s simply serendipity. 

Whichever way he cuts it, he meets an old, familiar gaze across a sea of strangers and for a heartbeat he is home.

Then the ocean of anonymity he’s been exiled to surges to the fore again and he loses himself in the crowd and the white noise.

It’s almost enough to wash away hope’s bittersweet sting.

~*~

He never once imagined himself enamoured of the rookery, with all of its disarray and screeching. It was plied with too much responsibility and too many tiny bones that were so very easy to break. 

So much easier to wait out the birthings with the horde, where he could keep to himself, where he could sequester himself and covet all of his treasures and his secrets. 

When his treasures and his secrets are all he has left, they lose their luster.

It isn’t until he holds Miranda in his arms for the very first time that he realizes his folly. The disarray and the screeching are still there, echoing down the hospital’s halls. The bundle in his arms is pink and fragile--tiny nose, tiny hands, tiny bones that he could grind to dust, lying asleep in his hands. 

_And she is his,_ he thinks. _Forever and always._

Every piece of gold and every shining jewel, every whispered secret and stolen craft--all of it pales in comparison. For once, he is more than happy to admit he was a fool for ever coveting anything else.

~*~

His exile is a punishment, he knows this. Retribution for fortunes stolen and blood spilt. The manifest of his sins is written in the stars, his penance meted out by the gods of fury and spite. Every last one of his reparations are carved out of his skin and mapped in his scars. 

Maligners and fiends, after all, never fail to get their pound of flesh. 

Such a tenuous line dividing hunter from prey. He has never before stopped to consider how easy it is for humans to cross between the two. 

He doubts the ones who held him in such contempt ever thought him capable of finding purpose again, after stripping him of his powers, his wealth and his name. For a long time, he believed much the same. 

There is no suffering in being contented and fulfilled. His exile is to assure he feels little else.

He doubts MJN is even a blip on his accusers’ radar--they are simply too inconsequential to merit any attention. What could he possibly find gamboling in the company of other misfits? What could they possibly have to offer him, held together as they are with gaffer tape and prayers?

But that is the wonderful, bewildering thing about humans. They always do the unexpected. And when the wronged and the kind-hearted and the meek see pain in another, they reach out. Misery may love company, but it does not forge bonds, does not offer loyalty or strength.

They are steadfast and resolute and he knows with a surety that leaves him aching that they will never abandoned him.

That’s when he realizes his exile means nothing.

This punishment was meant to break him, leave him grounded and bereft. But all they did was clip his wings. He still bears the scars, still remembers the change and cruelty, but there is so much more now, and all of it so much better. 

He has a daughter now, a family. But most importantly of all, he has a purpose.

He has never felt so blessedly free.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Linguini and Sproid for all their encouragement and general dorkiness. <3


End file.
